Where I am now isn’t exactly how I envisioned it, even though it’s amazing and it’s my dream."

“Where I am now isn’t exactly how I envisioned it, even though it’s amazing and it’s my dream”, Kate tells us over Skype. Kate is one of Megan’s best friends from growing up and the two figure-skated together for years. Currently, she is a physical therapist at Neuroworx, a physical therapy clinic in Utah that specializes in spinal cord injury rehabilitation. She’s worked there a little over a year and spends her days helping patients with neurological deficits such as paraplegia to regain mobility and maybe even learn to walk again. Because Neuroworx is a non-profit, they are able to treat patients even after their insurance expires. “For the most part, patients get cut off by insurance and that’s when their progress gets cut off too. What we do with the nonprofit is we are able to treat patients for longer to give them a chance to recover to their potential.”

When Kate was growing up, she always thought she would be a professional figure skater. She dedicated all of her childhood and teenage years to figure skating. She and her partner were nationally ranked ice-dancers and competed internationally. At the peak of her career, she would

wake up at 3 am and drive to Boston to skate for two to three hours, and then drive an hour and a half to school. Some days she would go back to train after school. “People in high school would write in my yearbook: ‘have a good summer. Have fun skating. Sorry I didn’t get to know you better.’ It was everything. Skating was my whole life. It taught me a lot of lessons that I can see now, but I was like a zombie all the time.” Kate laughs as she tells us, “Skating was on my brain, and that was it.”

I ask her what lessons figure skating taught her, and she replies: “It taught me that if I really wanted something, I had to give my all to it. I’ve found that skill to be helpful with my career as well. One night, I sat down and wrote in my journal ‘if I were to train as a physical therapist the same way I did as a figure skater, what would that mean?’ I made a long list for myself, things like: I would go home and think about it, I would dream about it, I would read everything I could…” Megan asks her about how she made the transition from figure skating to doing something else; Megan knows that time was difficult for her. “When I realized my figure skating career was over, I didn’t know who I was. [Before the end of my career]

when people would always ask me who I was, I’d reply quickly, ‘I’m a figure skater’. So, it took me some time to go inside and realize what I like to do, what excites me, what I want to spend my spare time doing and leave skating behind. To be able to say ‘okay, that was part of me but it’s not all of me’.” Her mother was very influential in helping her select her next career.

When I realized my figure skating career was over, I didn't know who I was. It took me some time to go inside and realize what I like to do and to be able to say, 'okay, that was part of me but it's not all of me.'"

“As a kid, I really wasn’t into school or academics. I didn’t believe that I was smart enough to do anything medically. Being a doctor wasn't ever on my radar. In my senior year of high school, my parents said "Ok, you can’t figure skate forever, so what do you want to do with your life?" I knew I would be miserable being at a desk all day long. My mom helped me brainstorm. She asked me questions like "What seems fun to you? Who in the community do you see and think, ‘I could do that with my life?’" I always thought it would be fun to be an athletic trainer because I’ve had some great athletic trainers. I also liked the idea of being able to be at a gym feeling like I'm working out all day. And my mom suggested, ‘Well, what about a physical therapist?’ And I thought, ‘Yeah, I have always been interested in injuries and the body, so that might be fun.’ That’s pretty much how it started, and I grew to like it more and more as time went on. My freshman year of undergraduate, I competed in skating as well as being a full time student. My partner and I broke up at the end of that season and I continued coaching and looking for a partner for a couple years after that.”

Kate’s first athletic trainer played an important role in shaping Kate’s career choices, too. She says about him: “He became my personal trainer when I was 11 or 12 and lived in Upstate New York – he went on to become the strength and conditioning coach for the Baltimore Orioles – he and I had this connection. He made working out so much fun for me and I realized it was something I was good at. I think that’s when I first started getting into fitness and wellness.”

During Kate’s years training in Boston, she worked with a physical therapist, Peter, who is also a figure skater and dancer. “I went to work for [Peter] at the front desk of his small PT clinic, Backstage PT, when I was 18. Throughout PT school I worked there as an aide and as an office manager. I learned a lot from him and his wife. He became my skating coach and was really a good mentor for me. I remember calling him once while taking gross anatomy in a complete breakdown, worried that I wouldn't pass. He told me his own stories of struggling through PT school and encouraged me to keep going. He has been a really great support to me. Even though I didn’t go back there to work for him, I still give him credit for me becoming who I am.”

I ask Kate what physical therapy school was like, and she tells us: “It’s a lot of time sitting in a classroom (Megan jokes, ‘I remember you just loved that part of it’). Sitting in class and then you’re out on clinical. Sitting, then you’re out again. My class was 35 people, and you get to know each other really well. You get really up close and personal. You also go through so much stress with them – dissecting cadavers together for example. You gain a lot of experience with your classmates. It’s fun in that way, but once you get done it’s an amazing feeling.”

Megan asks her about what her clinical rotations throughout PT school and how she decided to work for Neuroworx. Kate tells us, “Oh boy, that’s quite the journey. I originally thought I would work with figure skaters and be a PT for athletes and dancers. I was so into that, but then I started to train in gyrotonic, (which is a mind-body movement technique similar to Pilates) and that kind of got me interested in alternative medicine stuff and mind-body stuff. So I started thinking I wanted to [combine the two and] be a holistic PT who works with performing artists. I was so committed to it and had this mindset that I was going to be different.” She had a job offer at a PT clinic that was gyrotonic and exercise based– exactly what she had envisioned for herself, but she still had one last clinical rotation to complete. She found Neuoroworx through a search online for good clinical instructors (CIs) and ended up doing her last clinical rotation there.

“I remember I wasn’t interested [at first] in working with neurological patients, because I hadn't had much experience in that area and didn't feel like I was good at it yet. On my first day, my CI asked me, ‘what made you want to come to Neuroworx? Are you interested in neuro?’ I'm pretty sure I told her I wasn't interested in neuro. And now I’m working there.” She laughs. She tells us a bit more about how she decided that Neuroworx was the place for her. “During my clinicals, I kind of made a list of things I wanted and what I didn’t want in my first job. It was important that I enjoyed the patient population, but also the atmosphere, the mentors, the community. If there was something that I found I didn’t like, I would take note of it. Watching the PT's at Neuroworx, I found very little that I was able to criticize. I quickly realized that that I had stumbled upon something incredibly special. I think who you surround yourself with is extremely important for who you become. My boss has been working with neuro patients as long as I’ve been alive, so

she has so much experience and I have so much to learn from her. I admire and respect all of my co-workers. It’s a very positive work environment. At Neuroworx, It’s really about the patients. It’s really truly about the patients and that is as it should be.” She tells us about when she first walked through the doors at Neuroworx: “It was kind of a weird feeling, because I didn't expect that I would end up there. But I had a feeling when I first stepped in the door. It just felt right, this voice inside of me said "You are going to be here for a while". I did a lot of questioning myself in those first few weeks…. ‘Is this the right place for me?’ It feels so exciting and fun, but that means I would be leaving behind all of the investment I’ve put into mind-body-dance medicine. So I really had to go with my gut, make a decision and take a risk to ask for the job at Neuroworx. [Pause] It was the right one!

We ask her a bit more about Neuroworx and what her days are like there. She tells us, “I’m a physical therapist, but you could talk to ten different physical therapists and they would all do something completely different. Even neurological physical therapists can be really different. Our patient population is about 70% spinal cord injury, and then we have patients who’ve had stroke, traumatic brain injury, cerebral palsy… any kind of neurological condition. It’s a really unique setting because it’s outpatient. When people are first affected by paralysis, they have a lot of rehab needs. For example, transferring to/from a wheelchair, learning how to get dressed, how to turn over in bed. There are so many things. We sometimes see people when they first get out of the hospital, 2 months after their injury and we also see people who are 10 years out of the hospital and have never had physical therapy. It completely ranges. Often, people will come in 5 days a week and spend 2-5 hours per day working out. We have people who come in once a week, twice per week, people that come from different countries and different states. I can’t say I spend the majority of my day doing one thing because every patient is different.” She tells us a bit more about the awesome technologies Neuroworx uses. They have pools with underwater treadmills, jets and cameras so the patients can see their feet move. They also have robotic treadmills that move the

patients’ legs so their nervous systems can learn the pattern of walking again. “We do locomotor training, where we manually step patients legs with triggers in their tendons. You know when you’re at the doctor and they hit your knee with a hammer? We use those types of reflexes to move the leg forward and to get their bodies to perform a walking pattern. There’s a ton of new technology that’s coming out. We have a new building that’s breaking ground at the end of the month. I just love going to work every day.”

Megan asks how Neuroworx decides what equipment they should purchase or new technologies they should take advantage of. “The cool thing about Neuroworx being such a small organization is that we [the physical therapists] really give input too, and it’s what the patients most need. Being a nonprofit, we get donations from different foundations. So when there’s money available to buy something, we’ll sit down and say what do we need? What do the patients need the most? What will benefit us most? It’s really cool feeling like you have a say in that process.”

One of the things that she loves most about her job is the patients she gets to work with. When we asked her what some of her favorite cases have been, and she tells us: “I think every patient is the coolest case I’ve seen because no two patients are the same. Everybody is injured in a different way or their condition comes on in a different way. It fascinates me to learn from these people and their nervous systems. My patients are amazing because of what they have gone through, they all know something and have a perspective on life that I don't have. It fascinates me how the nervous system works. I learn something new everyday from trying different things. I find myself saying, ‘whoa, that’s so cool! It actually works the way it’s supposed to in the books’ or, ‘that doesn’t work at all how it’s supposed to in the books.”

An example of one of the awesome patients Kate gets to work with at Neuroworx Kalon Ludvigson. He’s the U.S.’s most decorated power tumbler with over 20 World Cup and World Championship Titles and 8 consecutive USA National Titles. I got to know Kalon as a teenager as I competed alongside him (much less successfully and at a lower level ☺) and traveled with him to various competitions. Last August, Kalon suffered trauma to his neck while training and became paralyzed from the chest down. He now trains at Neuroworx with the goal of someday walking again (You can learn more about his story by checking out his website and watching this news clip here.). Kate tells us that many patients with spinal cord injuries will come to them with stories of doctors telling them they’ll never walk again. “I hear that story all the time,” she says. “And some do start walking. Or they’ll start functionally doing something again and say, ‘my doctor told me I’d never be able to do this’ It's a great opportunity to be part of the process of making the impossible become possible for people.”

She says that one of the big goals Neuroworx has for the future is to do research in order to validate their methods. “There needs to be research out there that validates what we do. My bosses will go to conferences, hear a problem presented, and realize how easily we could prove some things, if we had a little bit more time and resources ’” Outside of the incredible work that Neuroworx is doing, Kate says that her coworkers have become a great support system for her. “Work is my life, but I don’t feel like that’s a bad thing. My boss and I just trained together and ran a marathon this past June. My coworkers and I go hiking, running, on boating trips. They’re really my friends as well. It’s great not having a strong boundary between ‘these are my work people, these are my friends.’ They’ve become my family. I don’t know what I’d do without them. After my mom passed away [this past year], I came back to Utah and they were such a good support through that hard time. I don’t know how I got so lucky.”

Because it sounds like Kate has really found her niche, we’re curious where she sees herself in five to ten years. “I’ve always been a person who has had really strict rules for myself. I always knew where I wanted to be in five years. I’ve been anal about it. Since I got hired and feel like I am living my dream, I’ve thought, ‘Uh oh … what do I do know? What are my goals? How do I get better?’ I have so many mentors around me who I trust. I am very pleased with where I am even though it isn’t exactly how I could have envisioned it. So, I realize that I need to be flexible with my goals and vision for myself so that I don't close myself off to unexpected opportunities. So, every day my goals are my patients’ goals. I’m part of a team, but I’m also the youngest member of the team. In the future, I’m excited about taking this amazing thing and being able to carry it forward, be able to share it with students to make them better PTs and continue to progress patient care. To be able to help keep Neuroworx alive and growing into the future is my goal.... And I want a family for sure.” She says she definitely sees herself staying at Neuroworx. “It’s funny because my life has always involved so much moving around. Now, I can say that as long as I’m still growing, and contributing, if I spend my whole career at Neuroworx, I’ll be happy.”

One of our last questions for Kate is what components are important for her to have a full life? “I always need to have a challenge that I am working towards, something that excites me. I need growth and to feel like I’m doing something different and productive. I like adventure. I like to be helping people and making things better. That’s important to me. Something I’ve really learned this past year is how it is nice to be productive and feel accomplished. But, that if I don’t have people around me to share it with it's not nearly as fulfilling. Life is about people and relationships. " It’s pretty incredible to see that Kate has found all of those things after only one year in her new career in Utah. Following your gut really can pay off.